I barely slept that night.<\/p>\n
The necklace sat beside the green notebook on my bedside table, its chain curled around the little wooden box. I had placed Eleanor\u2019s photograph beside them, as if the three objects belonged together.<\/p>\n
Maybe they always had.<\/p>\n
I kept thinking about the name written in her note.<\/p>\n
I knew it. I was certain of that much. But every time I tried to place it, my thoughts seemed to move away from it.<\/p>\n
At breakfast, Jennifer stood at the counter making coffee.<\/p>\n
She looked tired, too.<\/p>\n
Neither of us mentioned the necklace until I sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, are we going to talk about yesterday?\u201d<\/p>\n
I poured myself a cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already talked about the necklace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. I mean everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
She rubbed her thumb along the handle of her mug.<\/p>\n
\u201cI shouldn't have sold it,\u201d she said. \u201cI know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you shouldn't have.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded and stared at the coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was embarrassed. I didn't want you to find out how badly I'd messed things up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could have told me the truth before you made it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask her about the phone call I'd overheard, about the money, and about the strange relief I'd seen on her face when I first returned home without the necklace.<\/p>\n
But I stopped myself.<\/p>\n
I had learned something the previous day. A person could admit one wrong and still keep other things hidden.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to go somewhere this morning,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo look into something your mother left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennifer's eyes moved toward the necklace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this about the note?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hadn't told her there was a note.<\/p>\n
For a moment, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
Then she lowered her gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw you take the pendant out of the box,\u201d she said. \u201cI guessed you might have found something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you know it opened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I believed that answer more than I had believed her denial about selling the necklace.<\/p>\n
Still, belief was not proof.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm going to be gone for a few hours,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want me to come with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She accepted that without arguing.<\/p>\n
I took the note from its small protective sleeve and read it again in the car before starting the engine.<\/p>\n
The handwriting was unmistakably Eleanor's.<\/p>\n
The paper had been folded so many times that the creases had nearly split. The ink had faded, but the name remained clear.<\/p>\n
Martin Hale.<\/p>\n
I had not heard that name spoken aloud in more than thirty years.<\/p>\n
I remembered a narrow face, a dark wool coat, and a man standing on our front porch while rain dripped from the brim of his hat.<\/p>\n
Most of all, I remembered Eleanor closing the door after he left.<\/p>\n
She had stood with her back against it, holding the handle as though she expected him to try again.<\/p>\n
When I asked who he was, she told me he was an old acquaintance.<\/p>\n
I never asked a second time.<\/p>\n
That was how we handled uncomfortable things back then. We called them private, then left them alone until silence made them part of the furniture.<\/p>\n
I started the car.<\/p>\n
The old address book was in the desk drawer at home, beneath a stack of instruction manuals and expired warranties. I had found it years earlier while clearing a shelf, then put it away without reading much of it.<\/p>\n
I returned to the house to retrieve it.<\/p>\n
Jennifer was in the living room, folding a blanket.<\/p>\n
\u201cForgot something?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn address book.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom's?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She watched me walk toward the study.<\/p>\n
I could feel her attention following me, but she didn't ask anything else.<\/p>\n
The address book had a worn brown cover and a small stain near the spine. Eleanor's handwriting filled most of its pages, neat and upright, with occasional corrections written in the margins.<\/p>\n
I sat at the desk and turned the pages slowly.<\/p>\n
Friends from church.<\/p>\n
The plumber who had repaired our kitchen sink.<\/p>\n
A dentist whose office had closed decades ago.<\/p>\n
Then I found the H section.<\/p>\n
Martin Hale had two entries.<\/p>\n
The first listed a home address in a neighborhood on the other side of town. The second, written several years later in darker ink, gave the address of a small accounting office.<\/p>\n
Beside the second entry, Eleanor had written three words.<\/p>\n
Ask before trusting.<\/p>\n
I read them several times.<\/p>\n
I had no memory of seeing those words before.<\/p>\n
A date appeared underneath the note. It was the same year as the photograph of Eleanor standing beside the young man.<\/p>\n
I took the address book and photograph to the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
The young man in the photograph looked too young to be Martin as I remembered him, but the years between the picture and the visit to our house were difficult to calculate. The man on the porch might have been older than I remembered, or my memory might have changed his face.<\/p>\n
I turned the photograph over.<\/p>\n
There was no name on the back.<\/p>\n
Only Eleanor's handwriting and a date.<\/p>\n
I called the number listed in the address book.<\/p>\n
It was disconnected.<\/p>\n
I tried the old accounting office, though I knew it was unlikely to be the same business after so many years.<\/p>\n
A recorded message said the number was no longer in service.<\/p>\n
I set the telephone down and leaned back in my chair.<\/p>\n
For years, I had believed that the photograph was a harmless memory of a time before Eleanor and I married. Now I wondered whether it had been evidence of something she had spent much of her life trying to contain.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to turn my wife's life into a collection of suspicions.<\/p>\n
She had been a good wife.<\/p>\n
She had been patient with me when I worked too much, when I came home tired, and when I sometimes mistook being quiet for being wise.<\/p>\n
She had cared for Jennifer through every childhood illness and sat beside my hospital bed when I had my surgery.<\/p>\n
Those things were true.<\/p>\n
Whatever Martin Hale meant to her, those years were true, too.<\/p>\n
I needed to remember that.<\/p>\n
Around noon, I drove to the neighborhood listed in the address book.<\/p>\n
The street had changed. Several houses had been replaced by apartment buildings, and a small grocery store now occupied the corner where I remembered a barber shop.<\/p>\n
I parked near the old address and checked the number twice.<\/p>\n
The house was gone.<\/p>\n
In its place stood a low brick building with a row of small offices and a locked glass entrance.<\/p>\n
A woman was carrying a box through the side door.<\/p>\n
I asked whether she knew who had occupied the property before the building was constructed.<\/p>\n
She thought for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an older house here when I was a child,\u201d she said. \u201cMy parents used to live nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember a man named Martin Hale?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry. That was before my time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thanked her and walked back to the car.<\/p>\n
I had expected the trip to tell me something. Instead, it had given me another address that no longer existed.<\/p>\n
The second address in the book was still within driving distance.<\/p>\n
The accounting office had become a medical supply store, and the building next door housed a small law practice.<\/p>\n
I stood outside for a few minutes, looking at the windows.<\/p>\n
Then I went inside the law office.<\/p>\n
A receptionist listened while I explained that I was trying to locate someone who might once have worked nearby.<\/p>\n
She asked whether I had a current address.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Only an old one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm afraid that may not be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
I understood.<\/p>\n
Before leaving, I asked whether the office had been there for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout twenty years,\u201d she said. \u201cThe attorney who owns it has been practicing longer than that, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thanked her and started toward the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d she called.<\/p>\n
I turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas the man's name Martin Hale?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
She checked a small directory on her desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can't promise anything, but our attorney sometimes knows people who have been in this area for decades. Would you like to leave your number?\u201d<\/p>\n
I wrote it on a slip of paper.<\/p>\n
It was a small step, and I tried not to make too much of it.<\/p>\n
On the way home, I stopped at a bakery and bought two rolls because Eleanor used to bring them home on Saturdays. The smell inside the shop was almost exactly as I remembered it.<\/p>\n
For a few minutes, I felt as if I had gone back to an ordinary morning from our marriage.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the note.<\/p>\n
Keep it with the pendant.<\/p>\n
Eleanor had written those words in the green notebook, and now I understood why she had hidden the paper inside the necklace.<\/p>\n
She had wanted the message to remain close to something she knew I would eventually notice.<\/p>\n
Perhaps she had expected me to discover it after her death.<\/p>\n
Perhaps she had hoped I never would.<\/p>\n
When I reached home, Jennifer was in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
She looked at the bakery bag in my hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou went to the old neighborhood?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mentioned the address book at breakfast. I remembered seeing those addresses when Mom was alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember Martin Hale?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her expression changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really. I remember the name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you remember?\u201d<\/p>\n
She placed a plate on the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom once told me not to answer the door if a man called Martin came by when you weren't home.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did she tell you that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was young. Maybe twelve or thirteen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you ever see him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid she tell you why?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennifer shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe just said I should get you if he came. She didn't seem frightened exactly. She seemed angry.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was more than I had known before.<\/p>\n
I put the bakery bag down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn't you tell me this yesterday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I didn't remember it until you asked about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I studied her face.<\/p>\n
She looked uncomfortable, but not evasive.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, I didn't know anything about the necklace,\u201d she added. \u201cI really didn't.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you didn't know about the note.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you still don't trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn't deny it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to,\u201d I said. \u201cThat isn't quite the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
Then she reached for one of the rolls.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom kept a lot of things to herself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe she thought she was protecting us.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the study, where the green notebook lay open on the desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
That afternoon, I placed the photograph beside the address book and copied the two old addresses onto a fresh sheet of paper. I wrote Martin Hale's name at the top.<\/p>\n
Then I added the date from Eleanor's note.<\/p>\n
I did not yet know what the man had wanted from her.<\/p>\n
But I was beginning to understand that Eleanor had not hidden one secret.<\/p>\n
She had hidden a path.<\/p>\n
And I had only just started walking it.<\/p>\n
I barely slept that night. The necklace sat beside the green notebook on my bedside table, its chain curled around the little wooden box. I had placed Eleanor\u2019s photograph beside … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36288,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36268\/revisions\/36288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}